newspapers first made their
appearance in Venice. They were in manuscript. The "Gazette de France"
commenced in 1631. There seems to be doubt as to the authenticity of the
early English papers reputed to have been published during the
excitement of the Spanish Armada, and of which copies remain in the
British Museum. It was not until the civil wars that, under the names of
Mercuries, Intelligences, etc., newspapers fairly established themselves
in England.

[Sidenote: Decline of power in parliamentary eloquence.] What I have
said respecting the influence of the press upon religious life applies
substantially to civil life also. Oratory has sunk into a secondary
position, being every day more and more thoroughly supplanted by
journalism. No matter how excellent it may be in its sphere of action,
it is essentially limited, and altogether incompetent to the influencing
of masses of men in the manner which our modern social system requires.
Without a newspaper, what would be the worth of the most eloquent
parliamentary attempts? It is that which really makes them instruments
of power, and gives to them political force, which takes them out of a
little circle of cultivated auditors, and throws them broadcast over
nations.

[Sidenote: Dawn of the Reformation.] Such was the literary condition of
Western Europe, such the new power that had been found in the press.
These were but initiatory to the great drama now commencing. We have
already seen that synchronously with this intellectual there was a moral
impulse coming into play. The two were in harmony. At the time now
occupying our attention there was a possibility for the moral impulse to
act under several different forms. The special mode in which it came
into effect was determined by the pecuniary necessities of Italy. It
very soon, however, assumed larger proportions, and became what is known
to us as the Reformation. The movement against Rome that had been
abandoned for a century was now recommenced.

[Sidenote: Variation of human thought.] The variation of human thought
proceeds in a continuous manner, new ideas springing out of old ones
either as corrections or developments, but never spontaneously
originating. With them, as with organic forms, each requires a germ, a
seed. The intellectual phase of humanity observed at any moment is
therefore an embodiment of many different things. It is connected with
the past, is in unison with the present, and contains the embry